Martin Buber, Lecture 1: I and Thou

A video that introduces Martin Buber's famous book, I and Thou, especially by examining the differences between I-It and I-Thou.

[@puppetspoetry7019]

I love Martin Buber… my favorite theistic existentialist; I learned about him as an undergrad when studying Kierkegaard. You take me back 50 years… to say “Thou” to life wakes up the very core of me this morning! It’s such a wonderful way to think of “other” as Thou and to see someone in their depth… instead of the objectivizing “it” when interacting with another. We would change the world by embracing this single concept... A way of fully being present to another human being❤. A way of being fully present to God!

[@skeleton-man]

Nailing it as always. Thanks, Eric! You the man. Will & Grace ... luv it!!

[@blackfeatherstill348]

Did he influence Levinas?

[@free_soul1111]

Thank you for this! I understood very well

[@emrahkorkmaz87]

Martin Buber iş complicated, but I really like his philosophy.

[@montej4829]

Lol I’m laughing so hard at 29:20 😂😂

[@DaaS4235]

Thou

[@davidbakker1076]

Thank Thou

[@jiyujizai]

🤔💙🌸🌱😃

[@pendejo6466]

"Dod for God, 2020: He Sees You!" Sounds like a winning campaign slogan.

[@EricDodsonLectures]

Not sure if I'm comfortable with that much responsibility. I can barely see myself.

[@mar1na1993]

I am beginning a personal deep-dive into Buber on recommendation from my Rabbi. Currently experiencing an existential crisis - as I frequently do - and she thought that the way I was describing it fit very well with Buber's thoughts. Thank you for your introduction to this content, as I know it's going to be a bit dense for me to get through.

[@adamjnotthecongressmanschi7026]

You seem like a really cool person. I want to have existential conversations with my rabbi :)

[@SanjayKumar-kv5nz]

I - Thou in the Indian culture is demonstrated by the very common gesture of the "Namaste" a person's two palms meeting in each other in respectful greeting - "I recognise the divine in you" is the meaning of Namaste

[@unusualpond]

Yes! I thought that also. Namaste 🙏🏻

[@bzurer]

This is wondeful. Thank you.

[@kauffmanba]

Your lecture got me to thinking... If you prefer I-thou to I-you, would you address a group of Southerners as th'all instead of y'all?

[@EricDodsonLectures]

Ha ha... having lived in the South for many years, I endorse this idea!

[@blackfeatherstill348]

The misnaming god sounds a bit like Eastern notion of Tao. That which can be named is not the eternal name... Anyway fascinating lecture, really enjoyed it.

[@schoolofalchemy]

Professor Dodson, I'm not your student but I'm studying philosophy, alchemy & psychology. One of our required reading is Martin Buber I and Thou and out of other videos I saw here, yours is the one that has explained well in academic level and philosophical as well. Thank you so much for posting your lecture. I also have a youtube channel School of Alchemy, I want to invite you to be my guest. If you published a book or literature, I would like to promote it on my channel.

[@streetscissors3457]

The eternal thou being described as two parallel lines meeting is to refer to a circular/perfect being. The only points where two parallel lines can meet it on a sphere, in this 3D plane. Introduce time (4D) and parallel lines can meet at life and death, creation and destruction, and other polar temporal concepts.

[@dweeebazoid]

Is it possible to find and download the pdfs of the notes to your lectures? Hearing your views on the various texts has been very helpful to me as I study existential and humanistic psychology. Thank you for making this available!

[@uiPublic]

No good talking to an idol if can't be like one in family's or unlike animals raise your estimation beyond Self?! Creativity maybe generative principle if it's not just maintain from falling ... unless God wants you me remade.

[@uiPublic]

No good also seeing God aloof and abstract akin snubbing every other's view weakness else to make a point, as opposed to desirably His first aim calling for a homely experience with Mankind's which all beings relate to.

[@dreamingdreamerdream]

This is making perfect sense. Jung wrote that the Self (imago dei) is also us but we don't know it yet. It is an unfolding experience, an agent of transformation, a mode of becoming. The more we get in touch with our Self, the more we get in touch with the Self of others. That means seeing the divine in others is seeing the divine in ourselves. As Goethe puts it: we see in the world what we carry in our hearts. "God is a circle whose center is everywhere (divine in everyone) and circumference is nowhere (it is unlimited)". Thou is the paradoxical God image, thus two parallel lines meet. But as Nietzsche predicted, the death of God is also the death of this divinatory faculty. The ego reigns supreme, everything is reduced to objectification. I and it.

[@fredogerald1475]

Worthful thoughts from the past and for the present no less.The current state of the universe seems to be largely based upon perseptions from what goes on around all entities present.Have the feeling like you do that Martin Buber has been neglected for a lot of years by many teachers and that Eric Dodson actually from his lectures so far and our deeper feelings may be called the best person to bring us again nearer to manifold treasures of view being undusted with all brilliance required.

[@nrgcoaching]

Buber is first and foremost Jewish and his way of thinking follows the Jewish tradition. The Thou in relation to God speaks of having a relationship with an all-encompassing God who is present and also separated from His/Her creation and who is represented here by humanity. God needed to withdraw from the universe to make room for humanity to exist. We live on a continuous quest to get close to God but with the knowledge that we will never get there - think of Moses and the burning bush. The I-Thou relationship is about being the present moment and seeing others as God would see them. In this way, we can imitate God and live according to his attributes which is one of the major tenants of the mystical side of Judaism, namely Kabbalah. It our opportunity to get close to God by imitating Him/Her through the use of His/Her attributes - mercy, knowledge, wisdom, power, beauty, and others. These attributes relate directly to the Source (God) and to the world (humanity). And yes, the writers of Will and Grace are Jewish and took the name from Buber's work.

[@hansen2558]

Hello, Mr. Dodson! I am not your student (I hope you don't mind), for I am somewhere from Southeast Asia. Thank you for posting this publicly, you do not know how many people you help.

[@guio.f.2873]

I agree with you, I'm a student of South America and this video helped me too much.

[@hyejue]

I am from Korea

[@willieluncheonette5843]

" What D.T. Suzuki did for Zen, Buber has done for Hassidism. Both have done a tremendous service for seekers. But Suzuki became enlightened; sorry to say, Buber could not. Buber was a great writer, philosopher, thinker, but all those things are toys to play with. Still, I pay my respects to him by including his name, because without him the world would not have even known the word Hassid. Buber was born into a Hassidic family. From his very childhood he was raised among Hassids. It was in his very blood, bones, in his marrow, so when he relates it, it sounds so true, although he is only describing what he has heard, nothing more. He has heard correctly; that must be on record. Even to hear correctly is very difficult, and then to report to the world at large is even more difficult, but he has done it beautifully. Suzuki is enlightened, Buber is not - but Suzuki is not a great writer, Buber is. Suzuki is an ordinary writer. Buber towers very high as far as the art of writing is concerned. But Suzuki knows, and Buber knows not; he is only relating the tradition in which he was brought up... of course, relating authentically. Tales of Hassidism should be read by all seekers of truth. These tales, small stories, have such a flavor. It is different from Zen, it is also different from Sufism. It has its own flavor, unborrowed from anyone, uncopied, unimitated. The Hassid loves, laughs, dances. His religion is not of celibacy, but of celebration. That′s why I find a bridge between my people and the Hassids. It is not accidental that so many Jews have come to me; otherwise, I am always shattering the heads of the Jews as much as I can... and still they know that I love them. I love the essential in Judaism, that is Hassidism. Moses had not heard of it of course, but he was a Hassid; whether he knew it or not does not matter. I declare him to be a Hassid - and so I declare Buddha, Krishna, Nanak and Mohammed. Hassidism came after Baal Shem. The word does not matter, the spirit matters. Martin Buber′s second book, I and Thou, is his most famous work, the book for which he was given the Nobel prize. Forgive me, but I disagree with it completely. I mention it because it is a beautiful work, written artistically, with great profundity and sincerity. But still there is no soul in it, because the soul was missing in Buber himself. How could the poor man manage to bring it into his book, his masterpiece? I and Thou is very much respected by the Jews because they think it represents their religion. It does not represent any religion at all, neither Jew nor Hindu; it only represents the ignorance of the man called Martin Buber. But the man was certainly an artist, a great genius. When a genius starts writing about something of which he knows nothing, he can still produce a masterpiece. I and Thou is basically wrong because Buber says it is a dialogue between man and God. I and Thou! Nonsense! There cannot be any dialogue between man and God, there can only be silence. Dialogue? What will you talk to God about? The devaluation of the dollar? or Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini? What are you going to have a dialogue with God about? There is nothing you can talk about. You can simply be in a state of awe... utter silence. There is no ′I′ and there is no ′Thou′ in that silence; hence I refute not only the book but even the title. I and Thou? That means one remains still separate. No, it is like a dewdrop slipping from a lotus leaf into the ocean. The dewdrop disappears, or in other words becomes the ocean, but there is no I and Thou. Either there is only I or there is only Thou. But when there is no I, there cannot be any Thou, it won′t have any meaning. If there is no Thou, there can be no I either, so in fact there is only silence... this pause.... My being silent for a moment says much more than what Martin Buber tries to say in I and Thou, and fails. But even though it is a failure, it is a masterpiece."

[@bethscott4330]

Morning G

[@pinnacleroofing9841]

I find most people don't want to be addressed as Thou as it presses them to consider their own Thou and not live superficially. If you address someone as thou most become defensive and suspicious.

[@456quip]

Oh, and I think the strap line to your channel should be "Are You Gettin' It?" Love it.

[@ess96720]

Thou is like Tú in Spanish. A form used with friends and family or casual encounters. Thanks for this lecture.

[@hyejue]

Thanks. I am here from Korea to know more about Martin Buber. 감사합니다.

[@456quip]

I thank Thou for making this video 😜 (seriously)

[@cameliavaschi600]

Beautiful. Thank you,!

[@Wardoon]

Hi Eric. Thanks for these videos. I learned few things from you so far and hope to continue to learn though I am not a student currently at University or college but am a life-long student and love learning. I would like to know if you did any introductory video defining and explaining what existential psychology is. I have always held that existentialism is exclusively philosophical and part of the field.

[@erdalbuber]

great lecture. thanks for this.

[@DrYshuaYisraelBABA]

Law I

[@unusualpond]

I really got a lot out of this thank you.

[@thegamedreamer7354]

I love your shirt

[@EricDodsonLectures]

Ha ha... Thanks... after all these years, I still like playing through Skyrim now and then. To me, it was a real masterpiece.

[@NicolinaDanielle]

During pandemic times when reading is hard because of stress I am so thankful for these lectures

[@RealNataliaT]

This is a wonderful lecture. Thank you. One thought for future: could you include/reference (verbally or posted on screen) page number references to some of the dominant concepts that you refer to?

[@osmankkum3387]

Hey! Sokratik diyalog ile alakalı bir tez yazmayı planlıyorum. Alanım ilköğretim. Aynı zamanda buber ve freire'i inceliyorum. Bu konuda bir öneriniz varsa çok mutlu olurum, ben açıkçası biraz çıkmazdayım.

[@kehindeonakunle5730]

this intro is very very good

[@nouriddineelyaakoubi5471]

Thank you so much and this is so close to what muslim call sidi and the meaning of Sidi ... it is so intersting thank you again

[@gastonmoreyra2256]

I am very thankfull for your work

[@hearthhaven]

What was the name of this course?